"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Rising Body Count in Cuba

In a conversation with a skeptical progressive this past week, the following questions was raised: "I'm curious to know exactly how many of the opposition has the regime killed or imprisoned over the past 50 years? My hunch is that it is far less than you would have one believe."

My immediate response was that a full accounting is impossible and upon further research discovered that this position is held by experts who keep track of fatalities incurred by all kinds of regimes in power. Nevertheless, there are a range of estimates of opposition or dissenters killed that are in the thousands and tens of thousands. Between 1960 and 1966 there was an insurgency in the mountains of the Escambray that fought the Castro regime made up mostly of farmers and Revolutionary Directorate rebels that had fought the Batista Regime demanding a democratic restoration. The dictatorship called it the "War against the Bandits." Tom Gjelten in his book Bacardi and the Long Fight for Freedom gives an account of what took place:

The peasants in the Escambray Mountains, an independent group even during the anti-Batista struggle, took up arms again, this time in opposition to the government's heavy hand. Castro had taken a lesson from Batista's hapless efforts at counterinsurgency, however, and he responded to the Escambray guerrillas with more force and ruthlessness than Batista had dared employ. With the guidance of Soviet counterinsurgency experts, Castro sent thousands of army troops into the mountains to pursue the guerrillas. Captured Escambray insurgents were often executed on the spot, and in a move reminiscent of the Spanish army's "reconcentration" strategy during the independence war, Castro ordered the relocation of entire villages where the guerillas enjoyed mass support. The villagers were moved en masse to western Cuba, where they could be closely monitored.

The guerrillas were eventually exterminated and the uprising was crushed by 1966. The full number of dead may never be known. In addition, for the Castro regime, merely wanting to flee the country was considered an offense and was often punished with death. Taking all this into account, below is my response.

An exact body count is hard to come by for Castro’s regime in Cuba, but no one has ever suggested that he killed the hundreds of thousands necessary to be considered for a slot on my list. Many infamous brutes such as Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Vlad the Impaler, Caligula, and Augusto Pinochet easily fall short, as do many well known conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli wars and the Anglo-Boer War.

The logical question a skeptic would ask is why is Fidel Castro placed in the company of the above named historic villains. The answer can be found in well documented archives stretching back to the beginnings of the dictatorship.

Even so, the body count estimates are only taking into account Cubans who have died as a result of the dictatorship ignoring the regime’s international missions and its non-Cuban victims.

Fidel Castro and Mengistu Haile Mariam convicted of genocide

For example, according to Matthew White who cites William Eckhardt’s statistics on World Military and Social Expenditures 1987-88 (12th ed., 1987) between (1972-80): 15,000 civilians + 21,000 military = 36,000 deaths with 17,000 Cuban troops at the height of interventions assisting their close ally Mengistu Haile Mariam. The aftermath before Mengistu's departure rose to more than a million and a half dead. Haile Mariam is today a convicted war criminal hiding out in Zimbabwe with another close ally of the Castros, Robert Mugabe. The Castro brothers had a direct role in an African genocide.

In addition to international missions formally carried out by the Cuban military the Castro brothers have a five decade tradition of training, funding, and organizing urban guerrilla groups and terrorists to advance their revolutionary agenda.